College was a continuation of her success story. She majored in journalism while also taking management and marketing courses in the business school. She received eight varsity letters, was named all-league in field hockey and lacrosse, serving as captain of the latter team (she even received one vote for All-American). She was elected to the senior honor society for all-around contributions to the school.
As senior year progressed, Kim interviewed several advertising and public relations firms. While in college she had worked in alumni relations and athletic fundraising so she had good experience in dealing with the public through correspondence and telephone. In addition, because of her athletic visibility, she had valuable alumni contacts in the industry, so she got interviews at several firms. She finally joined the advertising department of Hayfield's, a large multiple outlet regional department store chain.
Hayfield's seemed to have promised greater opportunity to quickly learn the fundamentals of catalog promotion and newspaper and electronic media advertising. The advertising department vice president Dexter Moore, happy to land a rare graduate of the university, assured Kimberly that she would have a private office, would be shifted between different sections, and would receive a salary review after six months. But none of these promised had been fulfilled and she was dissatisfied with her job. She quit and Kim accepted a position she had heard about at her professional society meeting: promoting travel and tourism for the state government (with a 50 percent increase in salary). Although the department has its share of bureaucratic red tape and political log-rolling, she was immediately given much more authority and autonomy than she had ever achieved at Hayfield's. Within her first year, Kim became the publisher, editor, and writer of the statewide newsletter for travel agents and primary liaison with all of the travel-related industries in the state's lake resort area, its primary tourist attraction. She gives numerous talks to business organizations and even represented the state on a promotional tour of Western Europe to drum up foreign tourists. The mid-western tourist agent's professional association featured her in a photograph and first-page interview about this trip in their newspaper. (To Kim it felt a little like her college newspaper's coverage of her game-winning goal against Northwestern.)
Although burdened by the demands on her time, she takes great pride in various groups explicitly asking the state to designate her as their liaison (not to mention the unsolicited job offers which she receives). She spends approximately half of her time out of the office and enjoys great discretionary control over how she allocates her time. The two-hour automobile drives for luncheon with executives of a major tourist attraction are a bit of a pain, but she enjoys the luxury of working late when she needs to and taking an afternoon off when no pressing duties or meetings are calling.
Kim's ultimate dream is to open her own business because she doesn't want to have to report to anyone!
Kim clearly craves autonomy in her daily work life with an eventual target of being her own boss. She is not frightened by having to structure her environment and rather enjoys unpredictability in her work. She is not entirely a loner, however, because she still wants to be a star whose performance is seen and praised by others. Perhaps in time she will not be so dependent on others to ratify her competence, but it is important to her now.
Advice on Countering Early Dissatisfaction
- In taking a job, don't be seduced by a firm's "glamour" or the luxury of its offices. What counts is whether your duties are "real" in that the firm will depend, however modestly, on your performance.
- In considering a job, ask senior managers and junior professionals what policies the firm has for ensuring that you will have opportunities to learn about top corporate concerns and to demonstrate your abilities to higher levels.
- From the beginning, balance your work and personal life. Don't allow your first job to so dominate your time that quitting becomes the only means of escaping the pressure.
- Clarify in advance what criteria are used to evaluate your performance. Aim to work in a job where your results are measurable. Insist on frequent informal performance feedback rather than allowing your supervisor to save it all up for an annual merit review.
- Minimize your time in quasi-training staff positions where subjective factors dominate your performance evaluation.
- Strive to move toward the firm's power-axis functions. If offered a move toward the center, never quibble about title, pay, or prerequisites. A lateral move toward centrality is a promotion even without more money.
- If you have been unable to earn the higher educational credentials so valued by many firms, strive to work for a less structured, probably smaller, entrepreneurial business where degrees are less critical than experience and performance.
- If unhappy with your first supervisor, don't denigrate him or her but attempt to please while simultaneously seeking opportunities to impress other managers and executives. Off-job professional, church, service, and political activities can sometimes provide chances to make contacts and demonstrate your abilities.
- Fight for the right to go with your project analyses and proposals to whatever level at which they are discussed. Be prepared to talk about your ideas when chance opportunities occur.
- After conversations with your supervisor, write a memo summarizing your understanding of what was said. You might then share it with him or her in the manner of, "Here's what I understood you to say at our meeting. Is my interpretation correct? Anything I missed?" And, "I really appreciate your taking the time to talk to me."
- Recognize that your intellectual knowledge and analytical skill are to be admired but will seldom be sufficient for you to be successful. Accept that less technically knowledgeable employees and managers are also valuable and are to be respected. Be careful to avoid embarrassing them by using arcane vocabulary with which they are unfamiliar.
- Accept that your very youth can be a little threatening to middle-aged colleagues and superiors. Don't respond by avoiding them. Rather, reach out to build the vertical coalitions so helpful to both older and younger managers.
- All other things being equal, try to work for a manager who is like you in personal style, values, and philosophy. He or she will be a bit more likely to value your contributions highly.
- Look for opportunities to do what is right for the firm even if corporate policies (but not society's laws) would be violated. Almost all human groups, from families to nations, bend the rules for those deemed most valuable. This mild hypocrisy allows exceptional individuals to depart from accepted policy and initiate new ideas. Avoiding punishment, however, depends on successful contribution to the organization. Failure usually brings rejection.
